One of the ways to allow others to build trust in you is to

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A strong, cohesive team can achieve anything.

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough. – Frank Crane, American minister and author

Have you ever managed people who didn't trust one another? If you have, then you'll know how challenging and draining this can be.

A team without trust isn't really a team: it's just a group of individuals, working together, often making disappointing progress. They may not share information, they might battle over rights and responsibilities, and they may not cooperate with one another. It doesn't matter how capable or talented your people are, they may never reach their full potential if trust isn't present.

However, when trust is in place, each individual in the team becomes stronger, because he or she is part of an effective, cohesive group. When people trust one another, the group can achieve truly meaningful goals.

So how can you, as a leader, help your team to build the trust that it needs to flourish? In this article we'll look at the issue of trust within teams, why it's important, and what you can do to build it.

The Importance of Trust

One definition describes trust as a "reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something."

Think about that definition for a moment. Trust means that you rely on someone else to do the right thing. You believe in the person's integrity and strength, to the extent that you're able to put yourself on the line, at some risk to yourself.

Trust is essential to an effective team, because it provides a sense of safety. When your team members feel safe with each other, they feel comfortable to open up, take appropriate risks, and expose vulnerabilities.

Without trust there's less innovation, collaboration, creative thinking, and productivity, and people spend their time protecting themselves and their interests – this is time that should be spent helping the group attain its goals.

Trust is also essential for knowledge sharing. A study published in the Journal of Knowledge Management found that trust was a key element in a team's knowledge acquisition. Put simply, if your team members trust one another, they're far more likely to share knowledge, and to communicate openly.

How To Build Trust With Your Employees

As a leader, what can you do to create a culture of trust within your team?

1. Lead by Example

If you want to build trust within your team, then lead by example, and show your people that you trust others. This means trusting your team, your colleagues, and your boss. Never forget that your team members are always watching and taking cues from you – take the opportunity to show them what trust in others really looks like.

If you manage a virtual team, aim to treat your team members just as you would if you were working face to face. This means making every effort to be on time for conference calls or video chats, and letting your remote team members know when you'll be absent, or on vacation. 

It's important to follow through on the promises you make, and to set an example for everyone else. Keeping your promises is incredibly important in a virtual team, because your word is often all you can give. Positive follow-through builds trust quickly, and can raise the entire group's tone and expectations.

2. Communicate Openly

Open communication is essential for building trust. You need to get everyone on your team talking to one another in an honest, meaningful way, and you can use several strategies to accomplish this.

First, create a team charter to define the purpose of the team, as well as each person's role. Present this charter at the first team meeting, and encourage each team member to ask questions, and discuss his or her expectations.

Next, consider organizing team building exercises. When chosen carefully and planned well, these exercises can help "break the ice" and encourage people to open up and start communicating.

It's useful to help your people understand that other people's approaches and insights can be as valid as their own. This is where psychometric instruments such as Myers-Briggs Personality Testing and the Margerison-McCann Team Management Profile can help people understand and appreciate those that they work with, even when these people have quite different approaches.

Meet regularly, so that all team members have a chance to talk about their progress, and discuss any problems that they're experiencing. This is an important part of getting to know each other. It also creates opportunities for team members to talk, and to help one another solve problems.

Make sure that you "walk the talk" here: whenever you have important or relevant information to share, do so immediately. Demonstrate that open communication is important to you by consistently sharing with the group. The more you share with your team members, and thereby prove that you have no hidden agenda, the more comfortable they'll feel trusting you and each other.

3. Know Each Other Personally

One way to build trust is to encourage your team members to see their colleagues as people. Think about creating situations that help them to share personal stories, and to bond.

Do this by asking sensitively about their family, or about their hobbies. Start by sharing some personal information about yourself, and then ask someone else about a hobby, or a musical interest.

Another way to get the team acquainted, and to form stronger bonds, is to socialize after work or at lunch.

For example, you could set aside time each week for informal group discussions. Consider asking team members to put forward suggestions on topics you could all cover. To start with, you could start a discussion around values. Share some of your own values, and encourage others to share theirs. Values are important to most people, and starting a conversation that allows people to share them highlights your team's humanity.

If your team works remotely, schedule an online "meet and greet" if it's a new team, to help everyone get to know one another as individuals. Ask everyone to write a paragraph or two in their online profiles about their expertise and skills, their personal history, and their interests, and use chat or instant-messaging applications to keep the channels of communication open. You can learn more about this in our article, Five Ways to Build Rapport Online.

Use your own best judgment when asking team members or colleagues personal questions – don't invade their privacy!

4. Don't Place Blame

When people work together, honest mistakes and disappointments happen, and it's easy to blame someone who causes these. However, when everyone starts pointing fingers, an unpleasant atmosphere can quickly develop. This lowers morale, undermines trust, and is ultimately unproductive.

Instead, encourage everyone in your group to think about the mistake in a constructive way. What can you all do to fix what happened, and move forward together? And how can you make sure that this mistake doesn't happen again?

5. Discourage Cliques

Sometimes, cliques can form within a team, often between team members who share common interests or work tasks. However, these groups can – even inadvertently – make others feel isolated. They can also undermine trust between group members.

Start an open discussion about this with your team members, and see what they think about cliques and their effect on other group members. Only by addressing the issue openly can you discourage this damaging behavior.

6. Discuss Trust Issues

If you manage an established team that has trust issues, it's essential to find out how these problems originate, so that you can come up with a strategy for overcoming them.

Consider giving team members a questionnaire to fill out anonymously. Ask them about the level of trust within the group, as well as why they think there's a lack of trust. Once you've read the results, get everyone together to talk about these issues (but make sure that you respect the anonymity of the survey!)

Trust is an essential element in team productivity. Without it, you're unlikely to get anything meaningful done. But with it, teams can accomplish everything they set out to do... and more.

As a leader, it's important that you set an example. Show your team members how critical trust is to you by demonstrating your trust in them, as well as in your colleagues.

Next, make an effort to help everyone get to know each other on a personal level. Encourage conversations on values, family, or hobbies. Last, discourage cliques, if you feel that they're damaging to the group's trust and morale.

Learning how to build trust at work is critical if you’re going to be successful as an employee, a manager, or an effective leader. Oftentimes, the first step to building trust is building rapport. 

If you don’t have trust, it’ll be more difficult to communicate and coordinate with your peers or colleagues. 

You may get passed over for promotions in favor of someone more trustworthy. In extreme cases, a lack of trust can even bring down your entire team or organization.

Unfortunately, the truth is that most people haven’t been taught how to build trust.

Thankfully, there are proven and effective ways to build trust in the workplace.

We’ll take a look at a step-by-step process that you can use to start building trust in the workplace today. But first, let’s quickly review the basics of trust and the two main types of trust.

You might not even be sure how to define trust. So let’s start there. When we discuss trust, we are talking about:

• Being able to have a sense of security and confidence when dealing with someone
• Having the ability to predict that someone will act in specific ways and be dependable
• Earning a level of credibility that has built up over time

Trust is a critical part of all interactions that we have as humans. It also plays an integral role in communicating in the workplace. 

How long would you be the client of an accountant or lawyer if you didn’t trust that they had your best interest at heart? How long would you stay in a relationship or maintain a friendship with someone you didn’t trust?

But figuring out how to trust someone can also be as important as being trustworthy yourself.

Unfortunately, the statistics show that people trust each other less today than 40 years ago.

At an individual level, you need to have mutual trust with your romantic partners, family members, and friends.

The same is true in the workplace. You need to have a sense of trust built up with your coworkers. A high level of trust creates a more positive employee experience. It also leads to a more productive workplace where people feel safe and respected.

But we never get explicitly taught how to build trust in school or anywhere else. Learning how to trust is something we’re just expected to develop as we grow up. 

Some people naturally excel at building trust. For others, the trust-building process we’ll discuss below may be entirely new.

Why should you care about trust?

When trust breaks down, you’ll notice an obvious shift in how someone speaks and acts around you. 

People who work at high-trust companies experience 74% less stress. The opposite is also true. A low-trust work environment can be stressful for everyone involved.

A boss or manager who doesn’t trust you is less likely to give you freedom and flexibility to work on your own terms. They’ll be more likely to micromanage you and carefully check your work.

Coworkers who don’t trust you are unlikely to collaborate with you or help you out. You also likely won’t get invited to after-work gatherings and events.

Building trust in teams from the beginning and maintaining it is crucial. Once your credibility starts to slip, people may see you as less reliable. 

Since people are unlikely to befriend untrustworthy people, your perception at work may continue to fall.

Especially now, with more people working from home as part of a virtual team, trust is more important than ever. A remote team must have a high level of trust.

When we talk about building trust, there are actually two distinct types of trust that you should know about.

These types of trust are developed in different ways. Both are important and work together synergistically. So it’s critical that you simultaneously develop both types of trust.

The two types are practical trust and emotional trust.

1. Practical trust

This is the more traditional type of trust, and the one that usually first comes to mind when thinking about how to trust someone. 

You earn this kind of trust by being a hard-working employee. You show up on time. You get your work done and meet deadlines.

Earning this kind of trust will get you the reputation of being someone who’s reliable and competent. When you say you’ll do something, you actually do it.

Without this kind of trust, people will micromanage you. Communication can break down, and productivity will decrease.

Keep in mind: employers building trust with their staff is just as important as the other way around. Whether you’re a manager or an entry-level employee, it’s crucial that you build trust with those around you. 

2. Emotional trust

People are less likely to be aware of this type of trust. You create emotional trust by going above and beyond what’s expected of you, and creating meaningful bonds with your team. It requires a level of emotional intelligence. 

Successful leaders tend to have higher levels of emotional intelligence, so this is definitely a good skill to start developing. 

If you’ve ever had a best friend at work, then there’s likely a lot of emotional trust between you. 

You knew that you had each other’s backs. You treated each other with respect. And you felt comfortable sharing ideas, thoughts, and feelings that you may not have expressed with other coworkers.

Building trust in this way is more complex as it doesn’t follow a set formula. It’s more about networking and relationship building.

Emotional trust is even something that can be built at an organizational level. 

Take Netflix, for example. 70% of their employees on Glassdoor would recommend working at Netflix to a friend. 

We would argue this is because Netflix hires with inclusivity and integrity in mind. Their employees work in a high-trust environment. They are also given more decision-making and information-sharing freedom.

Learning how to build trust in the workplace (and anywhere else) is necessary if you want to create lasting relationships.

In romantic relationships, a lack of trust is one of the primary reasons for divorce. Learning how to trust someone again can be difficult after such a situation.

In the workplace, Millennials are 22x more likely to work for a company with a high trust culture.

Whether you’re building trust in teams or between individuals, the end goal is the same. You want to create an environment where people feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and helping each other out. 

To have a sense of well-being and good mental health, we need to know that other people understand us and have our best interests at heart. This comes with having high levels of trust. 

It gives us peace of mind to know that everyone is working together as a team.

Being trustworthy also makes you more likable. It makes you more likely to get promoted or be positively recommended by colleagues. It unlocks potential for new or faster growth within your company.

It’s not just people that do better in high-trust environments either. Companies with high-trust workplace cultures perform nearly 2x better than the general market in terms of earnings.

Once trust is lost in any relationship, it can create an awkward feeling like something is off-balance. 

Things just don’t flow smoothly. Even if you can’t quite put your finger on why. While trust initially takes time to build up, it’s even harder to get back once you break it.

Now that you know what trust is, and why it’s so important, it’s time to learn how to build trust in your own life and workplace. You need to take actionable steps to build trust. It won’t happen automatically.

Below is a step-by-step list that will outline how to build trust with nearly anyone. 

1. Value long-term relationships

Trust requires long-term thinking. It might seem convenient in the moment to blame someone else or to make decisions that benefit you in the short term. But before you act, think about how they may affect how others perceive you in the future.

2. Be honest

Developing a reputation as someone who is dishonest is one of the fastest ways to erode trust. Always tell the truth, even if it’s awkward; don’t give people an opportunity to catch you in a lie.

3. Honor your commitments

A trustworthy person does everything in their power to stick to agreements they’ve made. If you make a promise, follow through on it. Avoid making promises that you might not be able to keep.

4. Admit when you’re wrong

People don’t like to hear excuses. If you do something wrong, it’s best to just be upfront about it. If you realize you were incorrect about something, own up to it. 

Being vulnerable enough to admit fault can humanize you and make you appear more trustworthy. Admitting mistakes is also part of being honest.

5. Communicate effectively

Trust can be easily damaged by miscommunication. Try your best to communicate in a way that doesn’t leave room for misinterpretation.

If you aren’t sure about something during a conversation, ask questions to clarify. 

Listening is just as important as speaking for effective communication. Make sure that you give others a chance to talk. It will show that you care if you genuinely listen.

6. Be vulnerable

Being open about your emotions and showing some feelings can help with building trust. It shows that you care and that you're a person too. 

Don’t be afraid to let coworkers know if something has upset you or stressed you out.

This one needs to be approached carefully. You don’t want to go telling all of your coworkers' overly-personal details. 

A level of emotional intelligence is needed to make sure that you aren’t over-sharing or under-sharing. Begin by sharing gradually. Done correctly, opening up about your feelings can strengthen a trusting relationship.

7. Be helpful

Someone who is trustworthy will tend to go out of their way to help people if they can. Not because of some agenda or because they expect to get something out of it. But because they're genuinely a good person.

Maybe you’ve done all of your work for the day. You could just sit at your desk browsing the internet. Or you could be helpful. 

If you notice a coworker who is struggling with their own workload, offer to help. Or ask your manager if there’s anything extra you can take on. Also, there is never any harm in giving guidance and advice to that new hire who seems overwhelmed. 

8. Show people that you care

People will naturally trust you more if they feel like you’re truly interested in them. Remembering little details like the name of a coworker’s child, or asking how their weekend was is a good place to start.

You’ve probably worked with someone who seemed to be in their own bubble. They didn’t seem to care about anyone else besides themselves. You’ve likely also worked with someone who was friendly and regularly checked in to see how you were doing. Which person did you find more trustworthy?

Even something as simple as remembering and saying someone’s name can show that you care. As Dale Carnegie once said, “A person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest, most important sound in any language.”

9. Stand up for what’s right

People respect honesty. 

While some bosses may like “yes” people who agree with everything they say, the best leaders value insights and opinions. Don’t sacrifice your values and what you believe just to appease your manager or try to get ahead. This will decrease trust with others.

10. Be transparent

As long as you can explain what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, most people will be able to understand.

Don’t keep secrets or hoard information for yourself. The people you’re building trust with are usually people on your team that you should be working collaboratively with. Share the information with them that they need to succeed too.

Learning how to build trust effectively will help you in all your relationships. You need to know how to build trust in the workplace if you want to progress. But it’s also for personal relationships as well.

When it comes to building trust, try to keep a long-term approach. Be honest, honor your commitments, admit when you’re wrong, and you’ll be well on your way to being seen as a trustworthy person.

Figuring out how to build trust doesn’t have to be difficult if you follow the steps we’ve outlined. Now it’s time for you to start taking steps to build more trust in your own life. 

If you want more support, reach out and discover how coaching can help you advance in life and your career.

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